I’d been dying for a good dystopian book to read when I finally got my hands on a copy of The Forgetting. It didn’t take more than reading a few chapters to decide I was going to like it. The writing felt intentional and thoughtful, not shallow like in a lot of YA books. The premise was unique and intriguing. The protagonist was likable. I didn’t want to put The Forgetting down.

In The Forgetting, Nadia lives in Canaan, a city where every twelve years everyone forgets…everything. Who they are, who their family members are, what they do for a living–every person in Canaan forgets everything. Except Nadia. At the last Forgetting, she didn’t lose any of her memories. But like everyone else in Canaan, she writes the details of her life down in a book. Needless to say, things aren’t quite right in Canaan, and Nadia is determined to find out what.

One of my favorite parts of The Forgetting is how unique the premise was. I’ve read my share of dystopian novels, and so it’s rare that one stands out from the rest. But The Forgetting certainly did. There was something very fresh about it, not to mention there were some pretty shocking plot twists that took the story in a direction I didn’t expect.

I liked Nadia as the protagonist. She was also a little different from most YA heroines. She wasn’t the overly-tough warrior girl with an attitude problem; she was more of a clever thinker than a fighter. I appreciated how she looked after her family members, even when they didn’t always treat her right. Family was a big theme that I enjoyed.

My biggest complaint with The Forgetting is that I was a little passive about the romance (no love triangle though, thank goodness!). I enjoy a good love story, but for some reason the one in this book just didn’t work for me. Not to mention some of the kissing scenes got a little more intense than I usually prefer. I’ve definitely read worse, but I still wish it had been toned down just a little bit. I also wish the author hadn’t made one of the minor guy characters have a crush on one of the other guy characters. It wasn’t necessary at all and I wish that part had been left out.

Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot! Some of the content could have been left out, but I still thought The Forgetting was an exciting, well-written, on-the-edge-of-your-seat read. I look forward to the sequel that comes out later this year, I think.

First of all, I would like to thank the author for sending me both of her novels so I could review them!

There are two books in this series: War of Rain and The Goddess. War of Rain is about a teenage girl who is sent on a journey to save her people. The Goddess is about a teenage girl whose world is turned upside down. There are some similarities in the stories–an impending war between people groups due to the protagonist’s actions, a subtle hint of romance, the protagonist wondering if everything they grew up believing is a lie. The plots were quick-paced and both books were fairly easy reads.

The stories had enough differences to be unique from each other, however. War of Rain had more of a fantasy feel while The Goddess felt more futuristic. Overall, I thought the story of The Goddess was more engaging and offered more in the way of plot twists. I enjoyed the crisp first-person writing in both books. Not too wordy with a decent amount of emotion.

Here is my biggest complaint: While I was under the impression that the books were Christian, after reading them I decided the worldview does not reflect a Biblical one. War of Rain,for example, wonders why the different religious groups don’t just get along because they all serve the same God. Jesus makes it clear that He is the only Savior (John 14:6). This (short) article also points out that various religious can’t all be true if they contradict each other in their basic beliefs about God. I didn’t notice this view in The Goddess; but both books overall depicted general spirituality, not a personal relationship with the one true Savior, Jesus Christ. While I enjoyed the suspense and the writing, the un-Biblical worldview was a turn-off for me.

There’s the excitement of finally seeing how the story ends. There’s nothing more satisfying than to come to the resolution of a series you’ve invested time and emotion into. But there’s also a bit of hesitation. What if the series doesn’t end as you hoped it would? There’s the realization that this is the last time you’ll visit the world and characters.

One of the biggest fandoms alongside Twilight and The Hunger Games. It has all the elements of the typical YA novel: tough heroine, mysterious hero, a bit of rebellion, and a whole lot of action. All of my friends read it and loved it, so I decided to give it a try. After reading it, I decided it wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever read…but I also didn’t think it was the best book I’d ever read.

In a previous post, I reviewed Matched by Ally Condie, which is one of my all-time favorite books and the beginning of an amazing dystopian series. It’s common for the first book of a trilogy to be good, while the other two books tend to, unfortunately, fall flat. Secular series especially tend to be disappointing, as the inappropriate content often increases with each book.

In Red Queen, there are two groups: the elite ruling class (the Silvers) and the oppressed common folk (the Reds). At first this may sound like most dystopians, but there’s a twist. The Silvers have superpowers while the Reds do not. Protagonist Mare is a Red, who steals to help feed her family and dreads the day she will be sent to war. The story drags on for a few chapters, until Mare learns she has an ability that should be impossible for her to have.

This week I’m posting a review of Matched, the first book in The Matched Trilogy by Ally Condie (AKA the Best Secular Series of All Time). This will be my first review on this blog of a secular book, but I highly recommend the series.

I kept hearing about the Christian dystopian novel A Time To Die, the first in Nadine Brandes’ Out of Time series. A Time To Die has gotten excellent reviews and won the 2015 Carol Award for Speculative Fiction. I was very excited to start reading this book. Did it meet my expectations?

Seventeen-year-old Thalli lives in a society where emotion is considered a flaw. The Scientists, the leaders of her post-apocalyptic world, have created a generation of people who do not feel emotion. Thalli, however, is an anomaly–she does have emotions. She’s been forced to hide her emotions in fear that she’ll be taken away and annihilated like one of her friends was years ago. When The Scientists finally learn of Thalli’s anomaly status, they plan to annihilate her. But her childhood friend, Berk, who is training to be a Scientist, comes up with a plan to keep Thalli alive as long as possible.

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Welcome to My Blog!

Hello, and welcome to my blog! I'm an avid reader, a college student, and the author of Reintegration. On this blog you can find book and movie reviews, author interviews, Christian living posts, and updates on my writing. Feel free to leave comments!

Thank you very much for stopping by!

--Ashley Bogner

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